


Enough

by TheMoments (TBs_LMC)



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anders Being an Asshole, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Big Damn Heroes, Budding relationships, Budding/Implied M/M/M, Canon-Typical Violence, Companions, Decisions, Epiphanies, Fenris Likes Hawke's Voice, Fenris Likes Sebastian's Voice, Hawke Has Had Enough, I digress - Freeform, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Leaving Home, M/M, Multi, Other, Pain, Prince of Starkhaven - Freeform, Solidarity, Sorrow, Starkhaven (Dragon Age), Tired of Everything, We All Love Fenris' Voice, Wounded Coast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29006502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments
Summary: “The worst feeling in the world is knowing you did the best you could and it still wasn't good enough.”“The best feeling in the world is being with someone who wants you as much as you want them.”~Both Quotes Anonymous
Relationships: Fenris & Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Fenris & Sebastian Vael, Fenris/Male Hawke, Fenris/Sebastian Vael, Male Hawke & Sebastian Vael, Male Hawke & Sebastian Vael & Fenris, Male Hawke/Sebastian Vael, Male Hawke/Sebastian Vael/Fenris
Kudos: 5





	Enough

** ENOUGH **

* * *

Fenris ran full tilt into the half-gutted building that was still burning fiercely in the night, bare feet skidding painfully to a halt on charred ground, rubble and gravel as his eyes took in one man kneeling in a calm bubble of air, in the middle of a blazing hot ring of fire that was already singing his own unruly hair.

“Hawke!” Fenris barked, eyes wide. For though he could well see the mage, there was no way for Fenris to reach him without being fatally burned. Everything he wore was flammable to a frightening degree thanks to the oils he rubbed his armor with daily to keep it just-so. And even if he stripped, the ring of fire itself was so thick he’d never make it in unscathed, never mind out with Hawke and himself intact. “Get out of there!”

There was a single moment…as if time had stopped its ceaseless march forward…like the flames slowed just enough for Fenris to make direct eye contact with the man who was at the center of every shitstorm – and firestorm – that befell this hellhole of a city. He hated it. Hated Kirkwall with more passion than he thought he’d ever hated mages.

And all because there was _this_ mage, whose soul was as marred by his own past, as Fenris’ was by his. But radiant amber eyes connected with his in this tiny space the stars had carved out for them to share before it all went to the Void.

“What do you do when it’s not enough?” Hawke asked, voice broken in the artificial hush of the moment.

At first Fenris didn’t understand, but then Hawke leaned back to reveal more of the toddler in his arms. A little boy, most of his flesh eaten away by flames. It was clear he was no longer alive.

What _do_ you do when it’s not enough?

You follow through on what Fenris wanted the most, that’s what. Kirkwall was never going to change. Hawke had tried for six years. He’d done more killing, more physical labor, more of everyone in town’s dirty work than anyone in the previous fifty years before he’d hit town a down-on-his-luck refugee.

What do you do when it’s not enough?

“You say ‘enough’, Hawke,” Fenris replied.

Time sped forward again and Fenris leapt into the flames, ignoring Merrill’s scream and Anders’ cries of warning and shock.

But Fenris knew that above any other, he could trust his mage. And so he took that leap of faith, the one he’d denied them both three years earlier, the one he so desperately wished he had apologized for and finally just _done_ for all of this time.

Well…he was taking it now. And Hawke, true to the heart of the champion that beat steadily beneath Fenris’ hand when he landed in a bouncing crouch beside the man, didn’t let him down. Instantaneously, Fenris was enveloped in the same protective bubble as Hawke, no injuries.

The same could not be said for the small child he still held.

“Every day I try to atone for Bethany. For Carver,” Garrett whispered as his head bowed over the corpse. “For Mother, for Emeric. For Ketojan, for Bartrand.”

Fenris’ left hand stayed on Hawke’s chest. His right hand moved to palm the mage’s cheek and he leaned his forehead against Hawke’s temple.

“Every day, eighteen hours a day, I run everywhere in Kirkwall from Hightown to Lowtown, from Darktown to Sundermount, from the Wounded Coast to the Gallows…the Docks, the Alienage, the Warehouse District, the Chantry, the Keep…I ask everyone I see if they need help, what do they need, _anything_. And yet with each passing hour I dig a deeper and deeper pit such that I will never see light again.”

Fenris wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Garrett say that many words at once when he wasn’t trying to tell a joke or story or get he himself all riled up with his incessant teasing. This man before him, however, was not normal Garrett. This? This was a man feeling defeated by the inevitable.

“What do you do, Fenris?” His voice cracked on the elf’s name as he looked up at him, eyelashes laden with unshed tears. “What do you do when you’ve done your best for six long years and it’s _never good enough_?”

A small smile meant to convey comfort and understanding rather than mirth, graced Fenris’ lips as he kissed Garrett’s forehead gently. “You say ‘enough,’ Hawke.” He rubbed his thumb on his cheek and repeated in a whisper, “You say ‘enough’.”

Fenris, still crouching nimbly the way elves could do so much better than humans, picked up the dead child. He saw a tear from Hawke’s eyelash splash to the body, then laid it on the ground in front of Garrett’s criss-crossed legs. Heard the cries of their party and other townsfolk as people began realizing that the Champion of Kirkwall and his erstwhile lover were within this particular burning building still.

A scream, a cry for help from above. The building had a second floor and without a thought or a word shared between them, Hawke leapt to his feet, cupped his hands and Fenris stepped into them, steadied himself and held his maul straight above his head. Using a burst of propelling magic, Garrett launched Fenris upward. The elf’s maul smashed a massive hole in the crumbling floor above, and Hawke immediately launched himself into a high jump to follow. Fenris caught his hand to pull him through the hole where he landed next to him as sure-footed as ever. They surveyed the scene quickly.

How many times had they rushed headlong into fool situations like this? How many times had they broken bones, burned flesh? They’d both been scraped, stabbed, pierced, practically filleted, because Hawke may have been a mage but he was an up-close-and-personal one who fought side-by-side with Fenris regardless of the fact that he could easily have been much safer staying ranged back with Sebastian, Varric or one of the other mages.

His arms weren’t hugely muscular from standing around tossing spells from his staff. They were built because more often than not he was using said staff in close personal combat. There was a quiet power within the man that Fenris knew could be as murderously fierce as his own hand sinking into a person’s chest and ripping out their heart, or as gentle as Fenris remembered Hawke being the night they had made love over and over again in Garrett’s bed.

At the same moment the two men noticed a child who appeared to be around the same age as the one Hawke had held in his arms. Fenris darted forward, plucked the boy up by his tiny torso, turned and tossed him to Hawke, who immediately created a safety bubble around the two of them and cradled the boy so tenderly it made something in the elf’s chest snap painfully, and yet showered him with some kind of relief as if an unasked question had been positively answered. Fenris looked back down through the hole they’d created to get up here, but fire had consumed that entire area and now the rafters above them were beginning to crack and crumble, creaking so loudly it made Fenris’ sensitive ears hurt.

“Hawke!” they heard Sebastian cry from somewhere above them and before either of them even saw him, a rope with a loop tied into the end of it appeared right in front of Fenris. He rushed to Hawke, wrapped the child securely in the rope and then tugged on it three times.

It was amazing, when he stopped to think about it, how much nonverbal communication they had all learned together over six years of doing this day in and day out with nary a day of rest between. It sure made things easier during times when your life was in peril as much as that of anyone you were trying to rescue.

The child disappeared safely up onto the roof.

“Go, go, _go_!” they heard Aveline yell.

“But _Hawke_!” Sebastian protested. “Fenris! I won’t leave them!”

The roof collapsed. Fenris shoved Garrett out of the way, thinking this was it…he was about to become ashes. Not to be outdone, Hawke propelled himself forward at lightning speed, grabbing Fenris by the waist as he simultaneously slammed into him, then kept going. Fenris barely had enough time to register that he needed to raise his maul but managed to do so just in time for the head of it to make a massive hole in the wall. Suddenly the men were standing on thin air just the other _side_ of said wall and would’ve plummeted to at least two broken ankles had Merrill not called forth vines and branches piled high to at least break the fall. Scrapes and bruises notwithstanding.

Hawke’s team scattered, for things were getting so bad lately that even he was hard-pressed to keep Meredith and her Templars at bay, friendship with Knight-Captain Cullen notwithstanding. Eventually the group met up at the nearest rendezvous point there on the Wounded Coast where the spectacular new housing development for elves that Fenris, Arianna and Hawke had championed through all the city’s red tape, had just burned completely to the ground. Undoubtedly the work of angry Fereldens or mercenaries hired by people who didn’t want the elves getting a better station in life.

Everyone was dragging their asses as they assembled inside the hidden ring of rocks that one had to leap over a few boulders to get to. They loved their hidden spot and often came here for bouts of drinking or a picnic or just to hang out and talk on the rare occasions life allowed them such extravagances.

Aveline was nowhere to be seen, but Fenris had not expected her given that she had been on patrol here tonight and between that and being the Guard-Captain, would therefore have had to take command of the situation, seeing it through to its fruition which would most likely be well after dawn.

Merrill plopped down ungracefully onto the sand, while Anders seated himself on a larger rock and spent his time scowling at where Fenris held Hawke’s hand rather tightly. Fenris glared right back at the abomination, caring not a whit for his jealousy.

Fenris and Hawke remained standing – Fenris, only because he was doing whatever Hawke was doing while trying to figure out _what_ he was doing. And no, Fenris was _not_ going to let go of his hand, as Varric joined them and raised an eyebrow at it.

Isabela winked and sashayed up to Hawke, ignoring the murderous look Fenris was certain he was throwing her way, just to rub the side of her body up against the Champion’s like she’d been doing with zero results for years. Fenris couldn’t help but silently gloat when Garrett squeezed his hand hard and didn’t even acknowledge the pirate.

Sebastian finally made his way to them after having delivered the child he’d pulled onto the roof in the nick of time into the care of a guardswoman, who would be ferrying the little elven boy back to the city for medical attention. “Sorry I’m late,” he said softly as he came to stand at Hawke’s other side.

Fenris nodded at the prince by way of greeting, and Sebastian nodded back. If there was one thing Fenris had always known, it was that Sebastian was as smitten with Hawke as Hawke was with Sebastian. If there was a second thing Fenris had always known, it was that no matter what happened or where Hawke went, two companions would always be at his side like they’d been for pretty much every quest and adventure for the past year, and unlike his feelings toward Isabela or Anders, for some reason Sebastian’s presence and what it meant had never bothered him.

He hadn’t, of course, chosen to examine the feelings behind that any more closely, but it remained to be seen whether that would become necessary.

When Hawke spoke, it was out of the blue enough that most of them jumped a little, startled from being lost in their own private thoughts.

“When Fenris found me tonight,” Hawke stated in his soft but perfectly clear voice…the voice Fenris wished would never stop speaking, “I was holding the charred body of a tiny elven boy in my arms. I had done everything I could to get to him, yet he had perished horrifically minutes before.” He swallowed hard, squeezed Fenris’ hand even harder. Fenris squeezed back.

“I asked Fenris,” Hawke continued, “What do you do when it’s not enough?” He finally let go the elf’s hand. Fenris worked his fingers a bit, thankful nothing had yet been broken. All eyes were on Garrett now as he paced a few steps forward – all the room there was, really – and a few steps back to his spot between Fenris and Sebastian.

“And I think the answer Fenris gave me was quite possibly the simplest and yet most profound response he could have.” Fenris felt himself stand a bit taller and enjoyed the fact that Anders’ scowl deepened significantly. He half-hoped Justice would come out so he’d have an excuse to punch him. Or relieve him of his heart.

“What do you do when it’s not enough?” Hawke asked of their circle of – not friends, really – companions was the best word, as it implied no love won or lost among any of them. “When time and again you fight and fight only to lose? I lost my sister to a darkspawn ogre outside Lothering.” His voice trembled almost imperceptibly, but Fenris could hear it…almost feel it as a vibration inside his ribs somehow. “I lost my brother to my own hand, because he begged me to kill him before the taint took him in the Deep Roads.” Hawke looked down at his right hand – the one that had plunged the knife into Carver’s heart – and was visibly shaken.

Fenris placed a hand on his shoulder. He noted peripherally, Sebastian doing the same on the other side.

Hawke balled that hand into a fist. “I lost my mother to a madman who used blood magic to cobble together multiple women trying to reclaim a love he found himself unable to live without. In none of those cases could I physically affect the outcome. I couldn’t save anyone in my family. And so I tried here, in Kirkwall. I tried to be fair to mages like me, to those _not_ like me. Tried to treat everyone as equal no matter what others thought. I tried to help elves, humans, Qunari. I have battled slavers, bandits, mercenaries. I have investigated crimes, gone wherever anyone needed help.” He shook his head sadly. “I have fought bitterly with every one of you time and again over my choices, and yet my choices were always made with the firm belief that the outcome would _help_ rather than harm.”

He hung his head. Fenris squeezed his shoulder as Sebastian whispered, “Maker knows your heart is pure.”

Hawke huffed out a mirthless laugh. “Be that as it may, good intentions have not saved me from overwhelming grief. A pure heart has not bettered my ability to save others from the tragic occurrences we have all experienced at one time or another.” As Hawke spoke his next words, his eyes met one-by-one each of them in turn. “It has not helped foster understanding of the Qunari or uplifted the plight of mages, elves or Fereldens.” He shook his head. “From time to time I _have_ helped individuals, but most of the time those returned to bite me in the ass. Petrice. Grace. Seamus. I forge friendships with Templars only to have other Templars try at every turn to kill me. I risk my neck to help mages escape the Circle only to be told I am never doing enough to help _my kind_ simply because I refuse to kill innocent people in the name of some cause.” This last was spat in Anders’ direction. The rebel mage looked suitably chagrined and something inside Fenris crowed.

“I try and try and try and…I’m tired.” Finally Garrett looked directly into Fenris’ eyes and asked, “What do you do when it’s not enough?”

“You say ‘enough,’ Hawke,” Fenris replied.

“That’s right,” Hawke nodded, his hands rising to cover Sebastian’s on his left shoulder and Fenris’ on his right. He looked at Varric. Anders. Isabela. Merrill. “So this is it. Right here, right now, I’m saying it.” He took a deep breath as Fenris stared at him. “Enough. I am not going to do this anymore,” he stated with a finality that anyone with an ounce of sense knew not to question.

Which meant, of course, that right away Anders attempted to do just that.

“You’re quitting?” he asked angrily. “ _Now_? To do what? Sit in your Hightown mansion and eat sweetcakes all day while mages suffer? While your own countrymen suffer? What makes _you_ so special?”

Nothing…and he meant _nothing_ …was more satisfying than the crunch Fenris both felt and heard when he hauled off and punched Anders square in the jaw. The mage reeled. Squawked as his hand came up to rub his wounded face. Stumbled. Looked for anyone to speak on his behalf. Suddenly realized that Hawke was looking very evenly at him but making no move to stay Fenris’ hand.

“You’re just going to let him do that?” Anders asked incredulously.

“I don’t control what Fenris does or doesn’t do, and I know from experience that he doesn’t go around socking our companions without cause.”

“Fine,” Anders spat, and Fenris half expected him to whip out his magic…though he probably knew full well Hawke would wipe the Coast up and down with his blood if he did. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. Thanks for _nothing_.” And with that, Anders left the small circle a little bit smaller.

Hawke sighed as Sebastian said, “It’s friends like that which make me wonder how you’re even standing after six years of it.”

Fenris half-smiled and thought it would be nice also if Sebastian could never stop talking and then he felt his cheeks heat up when he realized quite suddenly that he had thought the same of Hawke’s voice, and began wondering when exactly he’d started having a thing for the guy who had a thing for the guy _he_ had a thing for.

He felt a bit confused. Blind-sided was a good way to put it.

“I understand,” Merrill chirped sadly. “Kirkwall is chaotic. I miss Nature. I miss happy times around campfires telling and listening to stories. I miss being scolded by the Keeper. I miss…my life.”

“I haven’t had one in so long I’m not sure I remember how to,” Hawke said, but only half-jokingly.

“I miss the sea,” Isabela intoned, a dreamy look in her eyes.

“I miss my brother handling all the Merchant Guild shit while I stay in the shadows,” Varric added.

“I miss Starkhaven,” Sebastian admitted.

Everyone looked at Fenris, who stated, “I do _not_ miss being a slave.”

Isabela nodded. “Good on you. I need a drink. Or twelve. Anyone care to join me?”

“I’m in,” Varric said. “I’ll pick up the tab tonight.”

“I’m in love with you, dwarf.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the chest hair, what can I tell you? Gets ‘em every time.” Varric got to his feet and looked at Merrill, then the three men still standing together at the end of the little circle. He walked up to them, looked them each in the eye and said, “If you really go, I’ll miss you like fucking hell, but I’ll understand.” He looked at Fenris. “Take care of him for me, Broody.”

Fenris nodded as Varric turned his attention to Sebastian. “And take care of _both_ of them for me, Choir Boy.”

Somewhat startled, Sebastian nodded dumbly as Merrill rose to her feet. “I know you’ve never liked my dabbling with the blood magic,” she said to all three of them, “and because of it we’ve never become the best of friends, but…stay safe. You’ll always have people in Kirkwall who care if you need us.” She slipped through the bushes into the night. And with that, the three men were alone.

“What now?” Sebastian asked.

Fenris shrugged. “You miss Starkhaven, do you not?”

Hawke looked at Sebastian. “And you need to take it back from your dimwitted distant cousin, right?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so on both counts. Why did Varric think I was going to be responsible for the two of you?”

Hawke shrugged.

And Fenris had an epiphany. “Perhaps he’s a much smarter dwarf than I ever gave him credit for.”

Sebastian’s eyes widened.

Hawke shook his head. “So we’re going? Tonight after we settle some affairs? Maybe pack a few things?”

Sebastian looked at the sky. “Well, it’s nearly dawn. Were you wanting to leave under cover of darkness?”

“Preferably.”

“Then let’s just go now,” Sebastian shrugged. “Surely Bodahn will be happy to follow with your belongings once we’ve figured out where we’re off to.”

“Yes,” Fenris nodded. “We don’t need a ship, after all, if we’re headed inland. We can walk until mounts can be located.”

“And in spite of my status as a prince, I’m a good thief,” Sebastian offered. “I can steal us food.”

“We have coin with which to purchase it,” Fenris pointed out.

“That’s not nearly as exciting, though,” Sebastian countered.

Hawke snickered.

Next steps decided, the men walked out of the hidden circle for the last time and made their way inland. Shadows of shipwrecks loomed off the Wounded Coast behind them like monsters plaguing their nightmares, that were being left behind for good.

“Perhaps I can teach Starkhaven elves to fight after all.”

“I do need a well-trained army,” Sebastian nodded. “And not just of elves.”

“Hm,” was Fenris’ response.

“Your Circle’s nonexistent,” Garrett stated, “since being burned to the ground by Decimus.”

“Why do all assholes’ names begin with D?” Fenris groused.

“What of it?” Sebastian asked. “Not assholes’ names, but the Circle.”

“I’m sure you must still have children coming into their magic every day. What will you do with them?”

“Perhaps we start anew,” Sebastian stated. “And do it right this time. The madness of Knight-Commander Meredith cannot be repeated, and yet I have seen enough blood magic in Kirkwall alone to convince me that oversight is required.” He looked sideways at Hawke. “Perhaps…you would care to oversee the process, to ensure that the same abuses never befall Starkhaven’s _new_ Circle as they did here and in other places.”

Fenris grunted. “For the record, I will _not_ be training _mages_ to fight.”

“No need,” Hawke stated with an air of his usual self-assuredness finally creeping back into his voice. “I’m the best battlemage I know.”

They all nodded. “And what will you do?” Fenris asked of Sebastian.

“Rule Starkhaven?”

“Ah. So…paperwork?”

Sebastian laughed heartily. “Very likely. Perhaps some kissing of babies and meeting with diplomats and such. But first we have to win her back.”

“Oh, we will,” Fenris said confidently. “Because this time, it _will_ be enough.”

“What about this?” Hawke asked, grasping Sebastian’s hand in his left and Fenris’ in his right. “Will _this_ be enough?”

“Well,” Sebastian said, “I’m not entirely sure what _this_ is, so that remains to be seen.”

“I think our chances are good,” was Fenris’ response.

“You’re not going to murder me in my sleep for this, Fenris?” Sebastian asked, indicating the held hands.

“You need not have worry of me, Your Highness. I make it a rule never to rip the hearts from the chests of those with royal blood.”

Sebastian smiled as they continued on their way. “Good to know. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“You guys,” Hawke said, voice thick with emotion even as he tried to keep it light. “You know I love you both, right?”

Fenris felt his face and ears heat up unbearably but was pleased to note that Sebastian was blushing just as furiously.

“Well,” Sebastian replied.

“Huh,” Fenris said.

“I hate you both,” Hawke rescinded.

“Nope. It’s out, now. You love us,” Sebastian said, laughter waiting to bubble forth through that brogue accent of his.

“Yep,” Fenris nodded. “You’ve put your cards on the table.”

Sebastian finally laughed out loud at the look on Garrett’s face. “I think this might just be fun. Unconventional, but fun.”

“Don’t you have vows to keep?”

“This is me leaving the Chantry,” Sebastian replied.

“Funny,” Hawke remarked, “I thought there’d be a lot more running and screaming and flapping robes involved.”

At the picture that invoked in his mind, Fenris felt a laugh bubble up and out of him before he even knew it was happening. So foreign was it to him that he wasn’t sure what to do with it, and when he saw the look on Hawke’s and Sebastian’s faces and realized they didn’t either, it made him laugh so hard he doubled over as they walked, clutching his belly with one hand.

“Definitely enough,” Sebastian confirmed around a wide grin.

“Yeah,” Hawke smiled, reeling Fenris in and putting his arm around his shoulder. “Definitely.”

If anyone saw three oddly mismatched men who also appeared singed and sooty and heavily battle-worn walking hand-in-hand with weirdly big smiles on their faces into the prairies of the Free Marches together that day, they didn’t report it.

What _was_ reported some two months later was that Starkhaven’s rightful heir was once again upon the throne, that his armies fought like none that any Ferelden had ever witnessed, and a kinder and gentler Circle of Magi welcomed any and all mages into its care effective immediately.

And three men who’d overcome obstacles that might have landed anyone of less mettle in their graves, faced each and every adversity hand-in-hand-in-hand, both privately and publicly, and thrived.

But that…is a story for another time.


End file.
